Edelman facing 4 game suspension

[SHOWTIME15]

Report: Julian Edelman tested positive for unrecognizable substance

No one knows what triggered it, not even the league. Also, Breer suggests that this is a substance abuse suspension not PEDs since it was done in the offseason.

 

[jah]

Report: Julian Edelman tested positive for unrecognizable substance

No one knows what triggered it, not even the league. Also, Breer suggests that this is a substance abuse suspension not PEDs since it was done in the offseason.

I think Breer is saying the opposite.

Because:
1) it was a PED suspension
2) stimulants are not PEDs in the offseason
3) Edelman tested positive in the offseason

Breer's conclusion was that he didn't test positive for stimulants.

 

[XLIX]

Does the league have to actually identify the substance in order for the suspension to be upheld? Or can they suspend someone without ever really knowing what for?

It seems to me that if they can’t I.D. what Edelman used, that’s solid grounds for his appeal, but I have to plead ignorance on the intricacies of the PED policy. Is it simply a matter of him having elevated levels of something in his body?

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

This is a bit odd.

They are undoubtedly using LC-MS (high performance liquid chromatography paired with mass spectroscopy) to determine the substances in his urine and/or blood. The data they obtain is a combination of the molecular weights of all substances present that were either ingested, converted to something else by the body, or converted to something else in the high-energy detection chamber of the instrument itself, plus their abundance. So they see an abundant unexpected peak or peaks, but it/they doesn’t match any peak that ought to arise from known banned substances.

They will identify it, assuming that there is sample left to test, using MS/MS analysis or by using other types of analytical columns or types of spectroscopy.

It could be a designer drug (modified in structure but acting like the known banned substance) but it could also be that he just (for example) ate something with a very unusual natural substance in it.

It is possible that he will be exonerated. Don't hold your breath, but it is a possibility.

 

[Sicilian]

I say a bunch of former NFL LB's take baseball bats and beat the shyt out of Goodell's face...and then say it's HIS fault he didn't know there was wood in the bats.

I'm not sure your metaphor really holds up here, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to support it.

 

[Urgent]

It certainly is odd that the league has detected a performance-enhancing substance, but cannot identify it.
One of the articles notes a precedence, related to the Balco Lab scandal, where it took time to develop a test to identify the substances Balco lab was using.
The question in the appeal might be: if you cannot identify the substance, how does the player know it was banned? How can the player check to see whether the substance is not allowed?

 

[Sciz]

This sounds like a good example of why suspensions aren’t supposed to be announced until the appeal process has been completed. There’s just too much uncertainty at this point.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

The question in the appeal might be: if you cannot identify the substance, how does the player know it was banned? How can the player check to see whether the substance is not allowed?

It could end up being simple and obvious, as in a designer drug. Maybe a lab took a banned substance and made a deuterium-containing analog of it (deuterium is a heavy isotope of hydrogen). Or added a methyl group. It would have a different analytical signature, but have about the same biological effects. It would be an obvious attempt to skirt the rules.

But maybe Jules and Andrew Zimmern (the Bizarre Foods guy) ate some weird sauteed tropical tree worms that have some bizarre tree bark chemical in them.

 

[bormio]

If they don’t know the substance, how can it be banned? And how can they know it is a PED? Sounds like this was leaked to set a narrative in stone.

 

[jah]

Maybe the FDA should actually...idk...regulate supplements. But then InfoWars would go out of business...

 

[SHOWTIME15]

If they don’t know the substance, how can it be banned? And how can they know it is a PED? Sounds like this was leaked to set a narrative in stone.

I’m guessing that the supplement/drug contained something that was on the banned list.

 

[Betterthanmost]

It certainly is odd that the league has detected a performance-enhancing substance, but cannot identify it.
One of the articles notes a precedence, related to the Balco Lab scandal, where it took time to develop a test to identify the substances Balco lab was using.
The question in the appeal might be: if you cannot identify the substance, how does the player know it was banned? How can the player check to see whether the substance is not allowed?

Yes, I remember THG case in the Balco Lab scandal and that is why I am scared of this Alex Guerrero and his Brady. I am with BB on this, get Guerrero far and away from his team as much as he can. When something sounds too good to be true, it usually that. I defended Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones and it was just a matter of knowing how to beat the test and be ahead. I hope this does not end like I fear.

 

[maust]

You know what else is unidentifiable? The confidentiality of the process. If it had been observed then pending the appeal we would have heard nothing. As it is Edelman has been smeared and the league once again is shown up as the gang that can't shoot straight all for something that may not pan out. It seems like there ought to be a suit to be brought there. Just as outside of starcaps no player who took a 'tainted supplement' has ever sued the company that manufactured it seems odd that once again information that realistically only a few people should be privy to gets leaked and no one is held to account. Perhaps if the offending party was ferreted out and offered a blindfold & cigarette at dawn pour encourager les autres we'd see less of this. The NFL is a bizarro world all it's own, out here in the real one anyone that's ever signed a standard confidentiality/nondisclosure agreement has to be wondering why nothing ever comes from the repeated confidentiality violations. I've worked with proprietary information and had to sign them and know I do. I also can't imagine why an NFLPA office full of lawyers hasn't jumped on it.

 

[jah]

You know what else is unidentifiable? The confidentiality of the process. If it had been observed then pending the appeal we would have heard nothing. As it is Edelman has been smeared and the league once again is shown up as the gang that can't shoot straight all for something that may not pan out. It seems like there ought to be a suit to be brought there. Just as outside of starcaps no player who took a 'tainted supplement' has ever sued the company that manufactured it seems odd that once again information that realistically only a few people should be privy to gets leaked and no one is held to account. Perhaps if the offending party was ferreted out and offered a blindfold & cigarette at dawn pour encourager les autres we'd see less of this. The NFL is a bizarro world all it's own, out here in the real one anyone that's ever signed a standard confidentiality/nondisclosure agreement has to be wondering why nothing ever comes from the repeated confidentiality violations. I've worked with proprietary information and had to sign them and know I do. I also can't imagine why an NFLPA office full of lawyers hasn't jumped on it.

NDAs are generally signed to protect those poor, vulnerable corporations from one individual yapping about them. I imagine the NFL decides what gets leaked.

 

[Mark.]

NDAs are generally signed to protect those poor, vulnerable corporations from one individual yapping about them. I imagine the NFL decides what gets leaked.

And if it involves a Patriot, it will always be leaked because it fits the cheater narrative they have created. #integrity

 

[luuked]

If they don’t know the substance, how can it be banned? And how can they know it is a PED? Sounds like this was leaked to set a narrative in stone.

Keep in mind that even though Breer had that little nugget that it was an "unknown" substance you can be sure that there is a lot more information available from the test than that. It could very well be a masking agent which is most probably why Edelman got suspended even though the substance can't be 100% identified yet. Or, of course, as @Palm Beach Pats Fan eloquently explained it could be a designer drug Edelman took.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

If they don’t know the substance, how can it be banned? And how can they know it is a PED? Sounds like this was leaked to set a narrative in stone.

For many things you can't directly test for the banned substance because it does not exist as such in the body. All you can do is test for the things the banned substance metabolizes into.

But for certain metabolites there are numerous things that could be metabolized into those metabolites. So you can't always identity what the actual ingested substance was that caused the positive result.

 

[Patsgofor4]

How do you suspend someone for an unidentified substance? This is not the WWF with Mr. Fuji use his secret powder to blind opponents. It's their job to identify it and prove that it is performance-enhancing. Gives me some hope that he could win his appeal, without knowing the details of the CBA and drug test results involving an unknown substance.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

How do you suspend someone for an unidentified substance? This is not the WWF with Mr. Fuji use his secret powder to blind opponents. It's their job to identify it and prove that it is performance-enhancing. Gives me some hope that he could win his appeal, without knowing the details of the CBA and drug test results involving an unknown substance.

That depends on how the CBA is actually worded (I have no idea how it's worded in this area). If it turns out the CBA actually says "you can't take A, B, and C, and you also can't take anything that breaks down to X, Y, and Z in the body" then it doesn't have to matter what he took and that it can't be identified.

 

[LaterGator]

And if it involves a Patriot, it will always be leaked because it fits the cheater narrative they have created. #integrity

Media trolls are tying to spin it as BB leaked it, but I'd bet on the league.

From Ninkovich's explanation of his case to EEI at first only the League and the athlete know. He was the one who informed Belichick after getting a letter from the league.

Another factor in the unidentified substance, some agents are chemically related. They might know it's from a family of substances, but not the exact one.